An example of a bicycle of this type is disclosed in document WO-A-01/54080.
These days, some towns are provided with automated bicycle rental systems enabling citizens to take a bicycle for an urban journey.
The rental can be subject to certain payment, and generally fine-enforced conditions, the latter condition aiming to safeguard the renter against theft and any damage associated with the day-to-day use of the bicycles.
However, it is also necessary to provide maintenance procedures, in order to guarantee the users bicycles in perfect working order.
These days, maintenance is normally performed by technicians who carry out regular checks on each bicycle.
Although flexible, since it involves a human workforce, such a procedure is, however, relatively complex.
In practice, it requires, for each bicycle, knowing the position of the latter on the date indicated in the schedule, then going to it to perform the maintenance check during which the state of various functional elements of the bicycle is checked (in particular tires, wheel rims, brakes and lamps).
Depending on the state of these elements, the bicycle can be:                either immobilized for repair if an element is found to be defective;        or returned to circulation when the state of the bicycle is considered satisfactory.        
It can easily be understood that as the size of the fleet of bicycles increases (in some towns, this fleet can have several hundred bicycles), this type of procedure becomes extremely complex to organize.
Furthermore, it may be that a bicycle suffers a failure or a malfunction without any maintenance operation being imminently scheduled. Since it is rare for a user who has observed—or caused—a failure or a malfunction to notify the renter's maintenance departments himself, the bicycle is de facto immobilized until the next maintenance operation, because users normally do not accept the use of a defective bicycle.
The result is a loss of profitability in operating the fleet.